The temperature’s getting (slightly) warmer, rain is pouring, and baseball season is in motion. These signs are all pointing in one direction: spring is here! And with spring comes the urge to de-clutter and reorganize before summer begins. In honor of the season, here are our Top 11 Tips to Help Spring-Clean Your Office.
11. Start a new habit of being organized. Who says New Year’s is the only time for resolutions? Make a spring resolution to keep your desk organized, putting five minutes into your daily calendar to go through all of the things that you have on your desk.
10. Do it in sections. Any task can seem daunting if you do it all at once. Take it in sections. Even if you only clean a little bit of your office space, you’ll feel better than if you don’t clean at all.
9. Ditch the ink. What’s more frustrating than reaching for a pen, only to find out it doesn’t work? Non-working pens seem to outnumber the working ones by a five-to-one margin. Go through your pens. If it doesn’t work, toss it out. Life’s too short for scribbling and shaking.
8. Sort your papers. Your email inbox isn’t the only one that’s overflowing. Go through that stack of papers that’s been growing since the last time you cleaned your desk (probably around the first of the year!). Make a system and keep up with it.
7. Clean your computers and other electronics. We use them every day, spill coffee on them, and sometimes take them into the bathroom with us. Take a few minutes and clean your electronics (with special wipes for your screens, a keyboard cleaner that picks up junk in between the letters, and even a spray can of air should do the trick).
6. Contain the cords. At the very least, find a way to contain all of the cords that are running from your various (newly cleaned) electronic devices. You don’t have to do anything fancy, just go find some binder clips for that hip “industrial” look.
5. Organize your emails. The inbox full of papers only gets filled every so often. But every day welcomes you to hundreds of new emails demanding your attention. Keep this organized, even if you’re the only one who sees it.
4. Get a better to-do list. As long as we’re going through your email, use it as a communications tool (as it was originally intended) and not as a to-do list.
3. Get a basket (or two). Sure, there are tons of great design ideas in all of those magazines that you’re subscribed to, but they’re taking up a huge chunk of space on your desk. Get a nice-looking basket for under your desk where you can keep all of these great ideas.
2. Ask the tough questions. As great as all of those design magazines and ideas may be, are you ever really going to use them? What about that memo from last month about the changes in benefits you never really understood?
1. Remember the round file. If you have to ask if you need it, you probably don’t.
Good luck. And for further motivation, keep in mind that “Organize Your Files Week” is April 18–24.
Share an organizational tip with us in the comments below!
